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Bi-Weekly Drabble Challenge - Theme: Summer - Results!

Your prompt/challenge for the next two weeks is as follows:

The HP books tend to glaze over summer months but so much happens in the background every time! For this two week challenge, you are to write a summer event that takes place on the summer solstice [June 20th].

Do wizards have groovy barbecue parties too? Do they go to the beach and splash around? Have they even learned to blend in with Muggles? Do they go on holiday? Do their kids go to summer school? Do wizard children go to wizard summer camp? The possibilities are endless, really.

Sound easy? It always does.
Here's your restrictions:
1. It must be written in 2nd person
2. No weddings, births, deaths, or rituals of any kind.
3. Flangst and Whangst need not make apperances.
4. Crack! can stay on the side as well.

Remember I'm looking for originality.

The following form must be used when submitting your drabble responses to this post -

Winners will be awarded 15, 10, and 5 points respectively.
All drabbles must be less than 500 words; All standard grammar rules, and MNFF submissions guidelines apply.

The challenge will be up for a week, and be closed exactly a week later (June 22nd)

MithrilQuill and I will be judging them and posting results a couple of days later or a month >.>

-cough-

All questions should be referred to the Question Corner #3 - Do not post questions here. Only drabbles!

New for the Weekly Challenges:Due to a major lack of quality drabbles being submitted to the weeklies, Gato Loco will require that some real thoughtful, original submissions be posted from this moment on or you'll end up like this woman here. That's your one and only warning! XD

Other than that...have fun!

~Gato Loco~

I've left moddom/fandom...though don't be surprised if I get caught lurking once in a blue moon.
All questions pertinent to Ravenclaw need to be sent to ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor
If you wish to keep in touch, feel free to friend me on LJ - I don't friend anyone under the age of 18. Sorry!

How Ironic...

Name: Squib Kitten/ElainaHouse: RavenclawTitle: Bella's HolidayWarnings: Mention of gruesome deaths in battleWord Count: 499Authors Note: Yay! I'm the first one to submit a story. The idea of a lovely summer day and Bella hating it was too good to pass up. I hope you guys like it. It was hard, doing it in second person.

You sit in the middle of a large field, the lovely pastel colors of many wildflowers waving around you. Cissy giggles and beckons to Andromeda, who chuckles a reply. They are making daisy chains and adorning each other with pretty flowers. You aren’t. For one, you are older than they are, and wiser. Daisy chains are childish, and they don’t go well with your dark tresses curling elegantly over your shoulders. You never indulge in such play, now that you are out of school.

You do like this place, but not because of the flowers. What snags your fancy is the history of this ground. Cissy interrupts your reverie with a call, “Bella! Come here! We found some blood-red flowers that will go with your hair. Come, try them.” Andromeda holds out a chain with the scarlet flowers. You go over to them, but not to humor them by wearing their flowers. This day does not go well with your dark mood.

You hear the words coming out of your mouth, but can’t stop them, “Those flowers aren’t the only thing that is blood-red about this field, girls.” You can’t help it; someone should share your dark mood. Mother will punish you for scaring your sisters in the middle of the holidays, but you don’t care, much. “This is a battle plain. Muggles and wizards both have bled to death in the very place you are sitting, Narcissa. I can almost hear their dying moans; almost see their entrails strewn across your precious flowers. They probably stomped them all flat with their marching and fighting. Great broadswords whirling so fast that they whistle on their way to chop off a head or an arm or a leg. The cries of fatally wounded men and goblins, horses and hippogriffs, even dragons have died here. That’s why those red flowers grow here; they drank up all that blood that soaked into the ground and turned from harmless white flowers into red, poisonous ones.” Andromeda dropped her handful of the flowers hurriedly. You aren’t done yet, though. “After the battles, the victorious army would come back out to give all their fallen a proper burial, but they left the enemy to rot.” Narcissa shuddered. “It’s so deliciously ironic that such a pretty place has such a gruesome history, isn’t it?”

It is worth it to see the horrorstruck expression on your youngest sister’s face. Andromeda is also horrified, but not just about the images you have painted so vividly in their minds. She is shaking mad at you. “I’m going to tell Mum you’re scaring Cissy,” She threatens.

“I’d like to see you try,” you sneer, “Father wanted to visit this place just because it was a battlefield. They know all about it; it’s written on the monument by the tree line. It’s not my fault Narcissa is such a sissy.”

“Fine!” She huffs. “Come on, Cissy, let’s leave Bellatrix alone.”

You sit and relish your solitary thoughts of all that anguish.

Please tell me I'm not the only one to enter this challenge. I truly hope the rest of you drabblers are just procrastinating, so I won't be the only one.

Name: Luna (Neville’s Girl/Nevilles Girl)House: SlytherinTitle: School MagicWarnings: NoneWord Count: 398Authors Note: Written for the reader to be a girl. It takes place in the USofA, because I felt like it.

You’re not happy. Happiness implies that your life is going great, and it’s not. It’s Summer, you’re finally out of that stuffy middle school building with the broken air conditioning, and you’re in Summer school at the stuffy high school building with the broken air conditioning. Seventh grade had been going great all year long. You just happen to fail your history class, because while Ms. Reese was talking about trench warfare and the Allies, you were busy reading novels.

You are sitting next to a kid with a gum addiction and apparently a sticking-chewed-gum-beneath-the-desk-when-I’m-done-with-it addiction. Mr. Raumb is standing in the front of the room, clearly much too excited about the Cold War or Sputnik or whatever it was he is jumping up and down about.

“Take out a paper and pencil, everyone! I want you to write down all you know about World War II!”

You reach into your book bag, which you have kept a safe distance away from the gum-girl, and pull out a piece of paper and—

“What?” you say, looking at the stick you were holding. You weren’t always sure what you had in your back pack all the time, but you know you don’t carry sticks around with you. Then you remember this morning. You had been a rush for the bus and you needed a pencil. You saw one and grabbed it off you father’s desk. The only thing was, it wasn’t a pencil; it was your dad’s wand. He is going to be mad at you, and you know it.

Your father was a wizard, and your mom was a Muggle. Sometimes when you’re bored, you go back and forth between “I’m a Muggle” and “I’m a Squib.” Either way you spin it though, you can’t do magic. So what would it hurt if you took a few imaginary swipes at the gum-girl or the jerk behind that keeps kicking your chair?

You turn to see that gum-girl has lapsed into her second favorite activity: sleeping. You take aim at one of the many packs of gum on her desk and whisper some nonsense that sounds vaguely like the things you dad says when he’s casting a spell. And it works.

The gum, to your surprise, doubles in size. You gasp.

Your mind begins to work overtime. Little voices started debating in your head.

“Muggle.”

“Squib.”

“Muggle.”

“Squib.”

“Witch?”

* * * * *

Name: Luna Natashi (Neville’s Girl/Nevilles Girl)House: SlytherinTitle: ColourfulWarnings: NoneWord Count: 464Authors Note: I’ve yet to see a fanon characterization of Luna I liked. I hope I did her justice.

You lie on your stomach at the edge of the stream dipping you fingers in the water, enticing the Plimpies. After a while, you turn over on your back, and your hair dangles in the water. You watch as clouds roll by: turtles, sunflowers, glasses, your father’s printing press, a nose, and a smile. It looked like the sky showing you your own reflection.

“Luna!” you hear your father call out from your house. Closing your eyes, you sighed, breathing in the scent of Summer and sunshine. Then you stand up and squeeze the excess water out your hair as you stroll back to the house.

You obediently cover your eyes and do not open them until you hear you father say, “Now.”

Your eyes open, and you see, resting in your father’s out-stretched palms, little jars of paint. Smiling, you pick up the bright green one, appreciating the simplistic beauty of the colour.

“Thank you,” you say excitedly, kissing you father once more.

You eat a nice early lunch together and talked about the upcoming edition of The Quibbler. Then you bring the paints up to your room as your father turns back to his printing press.

You ponder what you should do with your new paint as you stare at the jars of green, blue, red, brown, black, and gold. After a while, you find yourself staring out the window and wondering what it was like to celebrate a birthday with more than one other person.

Before you know what you’re doing, all the jars are opened and have a paintbrush placed in each of them. You work for hours until five smiling faces looked down at you from your bedroom ceiling.

When your hand starts to hurt, you descend the stairs to have dinner with your father.

It’s a good dinner; it’s a good dinner every night. You laugh and discuss points of interests such as the gnome that had made its home right outside the front door. You talk with your father until it’s decided that it’s time to go to bed. You kiss your father good night and make your way upstairs. You’re just about to climb into bed when you realize you had forgotten a very important part of your mural. You pop the lid off the jar of gold-colored paint and determinedly set to work adorning your picture with the word “friends” a thousand times.

When you finish and climb into bed, you find yourself staring up at your five best friends—Neville, Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Ginny—all framed by a golden chain.

“It’s time you were in bed, Little Lady,” your mother says stepping out into the garden. “Your brothers are fast asleep.”

“But I want to see the stars!” You pout and curl your legs up tighter as if curling into a ball will make her go away.

“You can see the stars any night,” she points out. “And it’s past your bedtime.”

“Oh, let her stay, Ginny,” your father says. “It won’t be for much longer.”

“She’s overtired,” your mother says with a warning glare at your father that you don’t miss even if she does talk as if you aren’t there.

“Tonight’s stars are special,” you explain knowledgeably. “They come up latest so they are special-er.”

Your father laughs again. “Special-er’s not a word,” he says planting a kiss on the top of your black curls. “But you’re right – tonight’s stars are special. Waiting for them makes them better.”

Your mother sighs. You don’t think she likes waiting.

“You’re not looking for the stars any more, Daddy,” you accuse him as you continue to scan the darkening sky.

“You’ll see them first anyway,” he says. “You always do.” He gives an exaggerated sigh of sadness that makes you giggle.

“You are so silly, Daddy,” you say.

“You should make a wish on the first star you see tonight, if they are special,” your mother says sitting down on the grass beside the pair of you and reaching across to stroke your hair away from your face.

“Are they that special then?” you ask, eyes wide with wonder as she leans against your father’s shoulder.

Your mother nods solemnly. “You should always wish on stars,” she says. “They’re lost fairies, and wishes help them find their way home.”

Your father laughs again, but this time you don’t understand why. It all sounds very sad to you.

“Look! Look!” you yell suddenly, pointing at the first star of the night, and you wish that all the fairies would find their homes.

You have always had a certain fondness for trivial Muggle events. That is why, as another ordinary Saturday arrives, you wake your older sister, Claire, using your usual tools: a lot of begging and what your parents would consider your ‘outside voice’.

“Claire! Wake up, wake up!” you shrilly shout.

“Oh, what is it now, Betthany?” she responds, her groggy voice surprisingly harsh.

“Oh, please, please, would you come with me to the park?” you plead. It is nine o’clock in the morning and you wish to arrive to the park before the innumerable crowds arrive.

Slowly, Claire raises her head from the downy purple pillow and glances at the clock. “It’s nine, Beth! Nine! Do you not realize that summer is meant for sleeping?” She glares at you with cold, hard eyes. “Why in the world do you want to go to the park again, anyway?” she asks, sarcasm dripping from every word.

“Oh, please, Claire! I wanted to have a picnic today! You promised, you know,” you say, tilting your head slightly and raising your eyebrows as you remind your sister of her pledge.

“Arg!” Claire growls into her pillow. “What in the world is it with your constant fascination with all-things-Muggle?” This question is rhetorical and you don’t waste time answering it for you know that this cruel comment is, in actuality, an acceptance to your petitioning.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” you shout, wrapping your arms around your sister’s neck. You run out of the room and head downstairs to begin packing the lunch. Hmm, you think, what do you pack for a picnic?

You knit your eyebrows and open the cupboard, searching for some sort of object to carry the food. You settle on a large, old pot and begin searching for food. Now for the lunch… You glance around the kitchen, wondering what Muggles bring to eat on picnics. Fruit sits atop the counter: two bananas, one apple, and an odd-shaped pink item you believe to be a quartered grapefruit. You shrug your shoulders and push all four objects into the grey cooking pot.

You then walk over toward the sink, thinking of something to drink. Grabbing two coffee cups and shoving them beneath the sink’s faucet, you turn the ancient silver knobs and fill both to the rim. You glance into the pot and place the open mugs next to the two bananas.

There we are, you think, grinning, finished.

“Claire?” you call up the stairs, wobbling on your feet with anticipation. As you call, your fourteen-year-old sister emerges at the top of the staircase. She gracefully slides down the steps and walks towards you.

“You’ve packed already?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“Yes!” you exclaim proudly, holding the pot out for her to see. Claire glances into the pot and a smile spreads across her face at the peculiar lunch.

“Excellent,” she says and grabs your hand. Claire begins to drag you towards the door as she asks, “Shall we?”

Name: Lola-LouisaHouse:RavenclawTitle: SandcastlesWarnings: NoneWord Count: 239- short and sweet Authors Note: At the beginning of Harry Potter, Ginny was always shy and reserved. I wanted to show that she was still the feisty girl we know and love from later books.

You sit there quietly. The sand itches your bare legs while you watch your brothers playing together.

They're building sandcastles, but they didn't ask you to play. Jealousy pounds through your veins and you glare at what they are constructing.

It is far too fancy. It stands tall and proud, sloping crazily to one side. Intricate patterns make the brick work and tall towers erupt from the top. It should not be still standing up. It should have collapsed by now.

You're angry that it is so good. You wanted to play a part in it, but they ignored you because you are a girl, because you are the youngest. Your flaming red hair is full of the golden sand and you frown slightly at the castle.

"Tip over," you whisper. You know you're being mean, but you won't let them beat you.

You keep glowering at it, and it sways dangerously. You know it is you, your magic. Your Mummy told you not to use it here, on a beach filled with Muggles, but she won't be able to prove it was you and you know it.

Thinking this, you feel a surge of energy explode in your small body. The sandcastle crashes to the floor, and your brothers look gutted.

You laugh to yourself. You may be little, but you've grown up with the masters of trouble making. No-one treats you like you're a little girl. No-one.

Name: Cinderella AngelinaHouse: HufflepuffTitle: The Distant Joyful RuckusWarnings: I'm not very practiced with the second-person thing.Word Count: 347. Read 'em and weep. Or not.Authors Note: Insert your favorite minor Harry-contemporary character into the summer before HBP.

It’s eleven in the morning on the longest day of the year, and the sun is hot as it beats down on your neck. You promised your mother you’d help in the garden so it looks nice for tonight, but it’s hard to work willingly with the sounds of the water park down the street assaulting your ears.

Not for the first time, you wish you were a Muggle. They don’t know that anything’s wrong – certainly the peals of laughter you can hear sound as carefree as could be. You wonder what would happen if they found out a mad Muggle-hating wizard was out to get them. Then you think that they would probably still go to the water park and laugh as if nothing is the matter.

You sigh and pull another weed. If you were a Muggle, you would be happier to weed by hand because there would be no other way to do it. But your wand is in your room, put away for the summer because you don’t turn 17 for five more months. So you pull up the weeds around the flowers and try to block out the noise of children splashing and shouting.

There are hours and hours of daylight left, and you just know your mother will make you work for all of them. She’s having a party tonight and all of her old Hogwarts friends are coming. It’s so that they can spend time together just in case, she says. You don’t like the way she smiles when she says it, and the way she patted your head when she told you that you could invite some friends too. You invited them, but you don’t know if you’ll have any fun. You’ll probably be too tired from cleaning up the garden and helping make the food.

If you’re not too tired, you might be too worried. You don’t think you’ll like watching your parents and their friends laughing too loud and drinking too much, pretending that nothing is the matter. Because you can’t pretend with them. You’re too scared.

Going through the short list of possible reasons to deviate from the plan to study pomegranate and aloe and finding none, you keep your expression absolutely impassive and ask,

"Why?"

"I am going to the forest tonight. There are also some preparations to be made earlier."

You know it pays to be silent, but your curiosity is piqued. What can possibly be important enough to cancel a lesson for?

"May I ask…"

"Yes, you may – although I may as well tell you straight away. Tonight is the night of the solstice, or the Midsummer Night. I will be going after a fern flower."

You are surprised enough to lose control of your face for a moment and frown.

"Isn't that just a Muggle superstition?"

"You will find a grain of truth in most of them, hard though it is to find. The fern blooms indeed, but not with the legendary fiery flowers. I need no blessed candle or salt circle to find it, and I doubt any demons will try to sway me."

"So what is true about it?"

"It blooms for a moment only, and the flower is irretrievable if not picked in time. It is true that it is best found under a birch tree. And the right night to pick it – yet not at midnight, but exactly midway between dawn and dusk."

You note all of this silently. Maybe next year… Then you ask one more question, even though you know the answer.

"Can I go with you?"

"Certainly not. This is better attempted alone. Besides, it would be well past your bedtime."

"Yes, Mother," you nod. As she leaves, you try to remember which book contained the passage that had caught your eye before.

* * *

At dawn, you watch Mother return, carefully carrying a large flask. After a few more hours of feigned sleep, you go to her study.

On the desk, suspended in the same flask is a large green flower, virtually indistinguishable from a cluster of fern leaves.

"Unattended Hover charm," Mother notes, walking in, a book in her hands. "The only way to carry something so fragile. That is why no Muggle can ever retain it, should they ever find it. But they never can. They always look for something so obviously wonderful that they overlook perfectly magical plain things."

You watch Mother open a page on preservation of fragile magical ingredients.

"It has been twelve years since I got my hands on one of these," she says with a strange thoughtful smile. Seizing the moment, you ask a question that has been haunting you for some time.

"Is it true that it can help understand animal speech and plant lore? And that, given to, umm, someone the giver, er, likes, it would make the… feeling last forever?"

Name: Phia PhoenixHouse:RavenclawTitle: Summer or Rather… Winter!Word Count: 500Author notes: This is my first light, non-angsty challenge entry in months! Are you proud of me? And I ought to note that the bunyip is a mythical Aboriginal creature that lives in waterholes, billabongs and lakes: when I was little I used to be terrified of it! Also, the Barrington Mountains have to be the most beautiful place on Earth and I would give my eyeteeth to live there.

‘Luna! I’ve found something!’

You hurry over, ever hopeful. This is how you spend your every summer break; travelling to a faraway country in order to look for some elusive magical creature. And it’s something you always anticipate for months beforehand.

Reaching your father, you bend over to examine the moss-covered stone nestled in its bed of rotting gum-leaves. ‘See these curious indentations? I believe they’re the scratches made by a bunyip’s teeth. Bunyips like to chew river rocks, you know.’

You nod, seriously storing your father’s words. You stow the stone in your backpack, then take out a clipboard with a list of ‘evidence’ on it.

‘Bunyip chewing rock,’ you mutter as you jot down the words. ‘thirty miles south-west of Dungog. What’s the date, please?’

‘20th of June, my dear. The summer solstice.’

‘Winter, daddy!’ you correct, although the Australian winter is hardly any colder than the English summer. Both of you smile, glancing up to where fresh sunlight filters through the canopy of luscious rainforest, arriving tinted slightly green at the forest floor. Wordlessly, acting with the comfortable accord of a father and daughter who know each other’s every quirk, you continue to trudge along the meandering path in search of the promisingly named Bunyip Billabong. Yards to your left the Williams River chortles merrily, as above you various birds trill exquisitely. The curling fern fronds on either side of the track rustle intermittently, as startled wallabies and potoroos scurry away at your passing. You cannot help but add your own sweet humming to nature’s symphony.

Presently, however, your father halts, finger to his lips. ‘Do you hear it?’ he whispers, inert. You stand as still as the tree-trunks around you, listening intently.

And then it flows to you through the earthy air.

‘A bunyip’s wail!’ you breathe, utterly thrilled. Without a word, you and your father push off the track, tiptoeing in silence up a slope to a rotting, fungus-covered log. Crouching behind it, your father takes out a small camera, counting down from three on his fingers. Three… two… one…

The two of you jump up from your hiding place, camera flashing as you photograph the source of the unearthly keening: a startled bird that looks like a brown peacock, with wispy tail feathers that trail along on the ground behind it as it high-tails away.

‘A lyrebird,’ your father groans, leaning against the log as he sinks to the ground. ‘Master imitators, they can make any noise under the sun.’ Face in his hands, he moans softly. ‘Luna, darling, this is a wild-goose chase. There is no such thing as a bunyip…’

You frown. ‘But, daddy, if that bird’s an imitator, wouldn’t it have to hear a bunyip first to copy it? So…’ You jump up, suddenly excited. ‘There must be one nearby! Come on, we’re close!’

Taking his hand, you pull your father along, a laugh burbling from your lips. You cannot imagine a better way to spend the summer, or rather… winter!

The sun beats mercilessly down on your head as you walk across the dunes, treading a path the sand could never hold but which stays imprinted in your mind from all the times you’ve walked it. The trail of footsteps is already fading into the shifting landscape within your sight as you glance back to make sure your family stays with you. Interesting that they could come, really. Part of the reason you took this job was because you wanted to travel and weren’t sure your family could ever provide the opportunity. Well, the desert surrounding the Nile river certainly isn’t England, that’s for certain.

Peeking up over the dunes, indistinguishable from them at first as the heat waves rose off the pale golden sand and distorted the sharp point into something more rounded, like the dunes, stood the top of a sandstone pyramid. Your only sister, Ginny, notices it before anyone else and jumps up and down on top of the dune, pointing it out. Mum and Dad exchange looks, wondering how Ginny could possibly still have the energy to jump around in the exhausting heat. Percy pushes his glasses up his sweaty nose and tries not to look as excited as Ginny is since it simply isn’t dignified. Fred and George whisper together farther down the line, and you know it has to have something to do with wondering if they can sneak out any old mummy bits without Mum noticing (or something similar, anyway). Ron brushes damp hair out of his eyes and grins at the pyramid, mumbling something about making Harry jealous.

After a moment, you press on toward it.

The darkness of the pyramid is welcome after the harsh sunlight, but at first, no one can see a thing except perhaps Ron’s rat Scabbers, riding upon his shoulder. You stand in everyone’s way to make sure they don’t stumble deeper into the pyramid before they can see where they’re going—you’ve seen too many curse-breakers like you stumble into traps by doing that very thing in unfamiliar pyramids. But this was one you’ve been in many times before. You know just how far to let your family go before it gets dangerous, and just where to take them. You know what curses were used and how to explain them without giving Fred and George too many ideas. Even though you’re on your vacation, this is what you do for a living, and you have no problems turning it into a holiday.

After all, who wouldn’t want to see three-headed mummified skeletons on their holiday?